By John Forde

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." - Woody Allen

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"What," Alfred E. Neuman used to say, "me worry?" Woof. Alfred must not be watching the markets right now.

Even if you don't own stocks or have a stitch of savings to watch evaporate, we all know what big market upheavals like these can mean.

Widespread angst, tight-fisted banks and starving balance sheets, less buying, less hiring, less ... advertising.

As I write this, the markets in the U.S. have rebounded some from where they were.

But the problems that just kicked the world economy in the teeth haven't really gone away.

What to do now?

Way back when, advertising great Bruce Barton put out this message, shortly after another market bust:

"A few days ago, when stocks seemed headed for zero and brokers were advising customers to sell, one firm issued this remarkable bulletin:

"Panics are but growing pains. There never was a great industrial depression that was not succeeded by a revival of epochal proportions which registered the growth of nations to even greater dimensions."

"This is not 'optimism.' Business will not be 'back to normal by November' -- perhaps not until a year later. Mark this fact well: the rise from the present level will be long and gradual...

"But the turn -- the beginning of the recovery -- is due and due soon. And the opportunity for financial progress which the next 16 months offer to the individual are more brilliant than they have been for
nearly a decade..."

This message was the opening shot of a sales letter that Barton penned smack in the middle of the Great
Depression.

The client was a self-improvement company called the Alexander Hamilton School. You can read the full letter an an excellent write-up about it on Lawrence Bernstein's GREAT advertising blog:

http://www.infomarketingblog.com/?p=242

How did the letter do?

If you remember history, the Great Depression also started with a reckless run-up in the 1920s and a gigantic market bust in '29, followed by lots of political sniping and controversy, a smattering of recovery, and a heaping helping of a few more market busts that followed.

We didn't crawl out from under it definitively until somewhere after World War II.

That was a long stretch to wonder when things might get better. And, look it up, it wasn't just bad then.
It was dread awful. Today looks like an island holiday by comparison.

Yet, Barton's ad for the Institute was a blockbuster. And he wasn't the only one who made a fortune by
knowing how to sell during rough times.

As his own copy goes on to say, "In bad times, the smartest people prepare for making more money." And
he goes on to show them how, during a downturn, nothing could be more valuable than using the time to
educate yourself and seize the opportunities others have abandoned.

Does any of that apply today?

Absolutely.

You might know, I write most -- okay, all -- of my copy today for the financial research industry. My pundit buddies are mostly (but not universally) saying we're still walking into the fire. The end is nigh and all that.

In more sober terms, I have to tell you, I agree with a lot of what they're saying. We ARE, as a society, overloaded with debt and too comfortable with piling on more.

We ARE increasingly focused on the short term and, ironically for the so-called Information Age, uneducated in the possible consequences.

Our elected leaders ARE generally childish and pandering, on both sides of the aisle. And we ARE, on the whole, polarized in extremely unhealthy and unproductive ways.

I generally don't get into those kinds of messages here, because no matter what the opinion, it's too
easy -- especially these days -- to offend readers on one side of the fence or the other. And what, in the
context of this e-letter's subject matter, would be the point of doing that?

However, I do want to say that while I'm pretty sure we've still got a long road ahead, I've also got good
reason to think -- no, let's say "know" -- that road is not endless.

Where it leads, I cannot tell you. No more than I can look back and see where it would have gone had a
complex web of choices never been made.

What I can say is that it's headed somewhere. And, even if it's only because the majority of us, as
Aristotle would say, "desire good," I'm confident we'll find new and great opportunities along the way.

Where will you be when they come? Hopefully, even more ready than you are right now.

As uncertainty rages yet again, that's just something to think about. And here's something more to
percolate over too.

Not so long ago, in the wake of the last market shakeout, I had the sense that a lot of readers were
worried too... kicking themselves for the stocks they didn't sell, full of angst over what might come, and
more.

So I re-ran an essay from a friend, Michael Masterson. You guys know Michael. Like Barton, he's
also an advertising great and generally prone to valuable insight.

In this essay, from his tenure as top editor and founder of the "Early to Rise" e-letter, he shares
some even bigger ideas about what to do when it seems like everything is taking a turn for the worse.

For at least a few readers, I'm figuring that maybe it's a good time to revisit that message.

So here we go...

DEFEATING DEPRESSION BEFORE IT DEFEATS YOU
by Michael Masterson

Let me tell you a story...

About 30 years ago, I became friendly with a man who had a very successful printing business, as well as a
significant personal fortune. He was a very charismatic guy - always good-natured, upbeat, full of fun, and easy to like.

Then - during the recession of the 1980s - his business collapsed. I don't remember the details, but he had taken on a lot of debt and lost a few of his biggest clients. Then, suddenly, he was bankrupt.

When I heard about it, I called to console him and offer a helping hand. It was too late. Sobbing, his wife told me that he had killed himself.

I was shocked. Devastated. I couldn't understand why he had done it. He had so much going for him. A beautiful family. Loving friends. Intelligence. Good looks. He was, in short, a person with great natural wealth. His financial wealth, as far as I was concerned, was just gravy.

Apparently, he didn't see it that way.

Six months ago, another close friend lost his job due to our current recession. His income dropped from about half a million dollars a year to almost nothing. Within a few weeks, he had spiraled into a clinical depression. He would not leave the house. He would not look for work. He talked about suicide. I was afraid he would do it.

I visited him, hopeful I could talk him out of the hole he had dropped into. But all the support I gave him fell on deaf ears. He was consumed by his financial problems. He asked me to give him a job. I had nothing for him, but I told him I'd see what I could do. I wanted to buy some time.

I visited him again the following day. We talked about his financial situation. I was surprised to learn that he had millions of dollars in property and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. He was in much better shape than 99 percent of the rest of the world. Yet he was in despair, on the verge of suicide.

His problem, I realized, wasn't a financial one at all. His problem was that his ego had suffered a near fatal blow. Without a high-income job, he saw himself as worthless. He had attached his self worth to his income. When his income disappeared, so did his self-esteem.

The next time I visited, I brought him a copy of Norman Vincent Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking." In this classic self-help book, Peale observes that depression is "one of the great problems besetting people." He argues that the root of most depression is a lack of self-esteem. He points to a survey of college students which indicated that, for 75 percent of them, self-esteem was the thing most lacking in their lives.

If you've ever choked up in an interview, forgotten your lines in a play, or blown an easy lay-up, you know how your self-esteem can take a little dip when your actions don't meet your expectations. And when you feel like you have failed in a big way, you can be crushed. It's hard to recover from that kind of blow.

That's what I think happened to my friend - actually, both of my friends. They had decided that their financial setbacks were huge, personal failings. In both cases, the trouble was the result of an economic downturn, not foolish actions. Both were smart, hardworking guys who had been successful for many years. Then, for whatever reason, they failed... and they were broken.

Instead of thinking, "Gee, this isn't working anymore. How can I change to prosper in this new world?" they must have thought, "I always secretly knew I was a fraud. This proves it. Now the whole world will know what a failure I am."

The lesson here is that you don't want to link your self-esteem to your ability to make money. As billionaire businesswoman Oprah Winfrey says, "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

We are all being affected by the Great Recession. If you are like most people, you have lost half your life savings. You may feel your job is in jeopardy. You may have lost your job. You may be without income. But the worst thing you can do right now is sink into a depressive state. You'll be good for nothing. You'll be unable to enjoy time with friends and family. And you'll be incapable of making a comeback.

Being depressed, a good friend once explained, is like falling into quicksand. The more you struggle, the deeper you get.

To avoid that quicksand, you have to change your thinking while you are still mentally healthy. You must detach yourself from the idea - if you have it - that your self worth is measured by your money. You must recognize that what counts most in your life is the minutes you spend learning and helping and growing - the time you spend helping other people, not dwelling on yourself.

In The Power of Positive Thinking, Peale says: "The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, the multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and leave you spent and discouraged. [It] is easy to lose track of your abilities and powers" - but by re-appraising your personal assets, you can convince yourself that "you are less defeated than you think you are."

As an example, he tells how he counseled a 52-year-old man who came to him "in great despondency." Everything in his life, the man said, had been "swept away" by a recent business setback. "Everything I built up over a lifetime is gone."

Peale recognized that although the man had indeed experienced a serious setback, his chief problem was the way he viewed it. "Suppose we take a piece of paper and write down the values you have left," he suggested. And so they did.

Among other things, the list included:

* a wonderful wife - and a 30-year marriage
* three devoted children
* admiring friends, happy to help
* good physical health
* integrity

Not bad.

Make your own list right now. If you have trouble making that list, try this - a little trick I've recommended before in ETR. Imagine yourself as an observer at your own funeral. Surely you wouldn't want to hear your spouse, your children, your friends and colleagues say things like, "He was a jerk, but he sure made a lot of money."

Think about what you would like them to say about you. Those are the things that really matter - positive personal assets that you don't lose just because times are tough.

If you're feeling down, focusing on those positive personal assets will help you overcome the worst feelings you could possibly have about yourself. And no matter what happens to your job or your income, you won't despair. You'll be able to use all your natural resources to start over again. And the money will come back - as it always does when you have the right work ethic.

If you think what I said here can help a friend, pass it along. As for what happened to my friend who lost his job six months ago... that's a story for another time.

---

Wise words.

 

Source:

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